


The End Where I Begin

by freneticfloetry



Category: Emily Owens M.D.
Genre: F/M, Medical Mumbo Jumbo, Misses Clause Challenge, More Ellipses Than Strictly Necessary, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freneticfloetry/pseuds/freneticfloetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That's where the story ends. At the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End Where I Begin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hesychasm (Jintian)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jintian/gifts).



_It's a tale as old as time._

"No." _Click._ "No." _Click._ " _Definitely_ no." _Click click click._

_Girl loves Boy._

That figures. The first night in weeks that I have control of my own television, and there is absolutely nothing on.

He hadn't really…

Romantic comedy. Reality show. Romantic comedy _about_ a reality show. How is this even _possible_ , given the sheer number of channels in the premium package I pay an arm and a leg for despite said package having been upgraded without my permission?

He couldn't _actually_ …

There's something on at virtually every other moment in time — multiple, _loud_ somethings, inevitably when I am attempting to talk, think, or sleep — but in my hour of need, the need for mindless distraction, the cable well has run dry.

_Boy is oblivious._

Fine. _Fine._ I'm a nerd. I have never denied the inherent nerdiness of my existence. And as such, it is totally within my rights to bury my nose in a book.

But he said…

Just not this one.

And he looked…

Or, as it turns out, this one.

And he _might_ …

When did every book I own develop exactly the same central plot?

_Girl gives up hope, just as Boy sees the error of his ways._

Okay, bed.

He probably wouldn't…

Distraction is a bust, so bed will have to do.

He totally _doesn't_ …

I'll just have to admit defeat, call it a night, and hope that my subconscious will not betray me as completely as mass media.

He is definitely _not_ at the door.

_There's a Sweeping Score over a Grand Romantic Gesture…_

Oh.

_…and then it's just a matter of the First Kiss, the Fade Out, and the Happily Ever After._

Huh. Well this is new.

_Except..._

I think we skipped a speech in there somewhere. Because we seem to have jumped straight to —

Oh hey, there goes the ground. Was that a one-handed lift? Either way, fairly impressive. Full marks for execution.

This isn't how it's meant to happen. Admittedly, this has never actually happened to me before, but I'd swear there should be more to this than —

Oh, hello. I wasn't really expecting shirtlessness at this juncture, but as chests go, it's a good one. That is a _good_ chest.

It's possible that I've let myself get swept up in the moment. Perhaps because the guy I spent the better part of my med school years hopelessly infatuated with just swooped into my apartment and swept me _off my feet_. If I could just —

Oh _god._ I'm not sure there's a term for what he did just then, but his tongue just might be magic.

_That's where the story ends. At the beginning. Which is unsatisfying and nonsensical and a massive lie of omission._

"Um," I manage. It's difficult, with the tongue. "Do you think —"

"No," he mumbles, and goes back to the magical move.

Well. I'm hardly in a position to argue with that.

Maybe it would help if I were on top.

_No one ever tells you what the After actually is, once the kiss is over and the picture is clear._

"Um," I try again. On the plus side, my mouth is now free of magic muscles. It's overall concentration that's a challenge at the moment; the flip has caused some friction. "I just think —"

"Nope," he huffs. It's hot and husky and comes complete with a hand beneath my bra. "No thinking allowed."

That… is going to be a problem for me.

_Once all the sweeping is silent and all the grand is gone._

Any second now, that is going to be a problem.

Just as soon as I can get my eyes to stop crossing.

The magic has moved to a spot somewhere below my left ear. I'm not sure I've ever used these nerve endings before, but they seem to share a direct connection with certain… other areas.

He comes up for air, and I see my window. Or more accurately, my ceiling, blurry, but there. Somehow, we've rolled again. It's a miracle we haven't run out of mattress.

_Once Girl gets flustered and Boy gets injured and the whole scene gets some unexpected company._

"Um," I say.

"No," he says.

The " _oh_ " comes from someone else entirely, but it makes my head snap up and his head snap back.

"It was my night for the bed," Tyra says, smiling and smug and slowly retreating, "but you know what? We'll switch."

There are tiny beads of blood on his tongue. I may have broken the magic.

"That is not how this was supposed to go," he mumbles.

_Which is pretty much the story of my life._

 

 

"You kicked him out."

Deep breath. I just need to get into my scrubs. "Yes."

"I vacated the premises, and you kicked him out."

In through the nose, out through the mouth. I swear I remember how sleeves work. "Yes."

"I willingly spent the night at _my_ _parents' place_ , and you _kicked_ him _out._ "

" _Yes._ "

Tyra blinks. "Are you hearing the problem?"

"The whole situation was… We weren't thinking. _I_. Was not thinking."

"Good," she snorts. "You think all the time. What you don't do all the time — and by that, I mean ever — is _have sex_."

I'd glare, I really would. But as I am currently stuck half-in and half-out of my scrub top, I'm doubtful that it would have the desired impact.

"I don't…" I sputter, still struggling. My collar is at war with my ponytail, resulting in a strange sort of… burqa situation. "I mean…" Okay, _ow_. You'd think, as a doctor, I'd be aware that arms don't bend that way. "I can't just…" Is it still a burqa if there's only half-coverage? Or is that technically a hijab? Maybe if I flap. "It's not that simple."

"It's pretty much Tab A and Slot B with you people, isn't it?"

Glare anyway, burqa be damned. "I didn't mean _logistically_."

"Hey," someone says from somewhere behind me. A certain someone in particular.

I'm almost positive that the act of turning in this position bears more than a passing resemblance to a penguin. From the doorway, Will looks perplexed. So. Probably no almost about it.

"Uh," he says. That's usually my line.

He glances pointedly at Tyra and then back to me, his eyebrows pulling together. I know those eyebrows. Those are the eyebrows of Collins confusion.

"Can we talk later?"

"Sure!" I answer, too quickly, too brightly. "Later works. Later is probably better, since I'm a little tied up at the moment." Overcompensation, perhaps, for the mouthful of shirt. "I mean. Yeah. That… would be fine."

"Okay." I have only compounded the confusion. "Great." His knuckles rap on the door jamb. "Rounds in ten," he says, and ducks out of the room, leaving me to turn awkwardly back to Tyra.

" _Wow,_ " she chokes. "And this is you the morning after you _haven't_ had sex?"

"Unfortunately." Perhaps some pinwheel action with the arms. "And before you ask…" — _whoa,_ no, way too much action —"…yes, the alternative is worse."

"I still don't get why you stopped."

"Because it didn't…" Oh, wiggling! Wiggling might work. "… _feel_ right."

"That's what happens when you stop before the good part."

Nope, not so much. With the wiggling. The other thing is still debatable. "There's also, you know." I drop my voice to a whisper. "The Micah factor."

Tyra stays at top volume. "You haven't good-parted with him, either."

"Yes, things are complicated at the moment. But Micah and I, we're… _working_ on… something. With actual words. We had a date, even."

"You mean the time you met on the neutral ground of the records room to hash out the pros and cons of the issue over sandwiches?"

Is this a trap? Because it feels like a trap. Of course, that could be the stuck-in-my-scrubs talking. "…Yes?"

"Okay, that is not a date, that is debate club."

" _It was a date._ "

Tyra raises her hands. "I'm just sayin… Eventually, you're gonna have to get in somebody's pants."

"This is me you’re talking about," I mutter. "I can’t just get into someone else’spants _._ I can't even get into _my own_ _shirt_."

"Hey," someone says. Still a certain someone in particular, though a completely separate someone from the first.

Crap. I have to do the penguin turn again.

Micah moves from the doorway and into the room. I don't know his eyebrows all that well yet, but they almost look amused.

"Uh," he says. It's a popular choice today. Then he reaches up with careful hands to free me from my polyester prison, something not one but two people I consider friends could have done before now.

" _Thank_ you."

"Don't mention it." He says it with a little smile. Definitely eyebrows of amusement. "I was hoping we could talk later."

 _Later_ is turning out to be a pretty packed period. Well, I may have been strange and spastic last time the subject of later was broached, but I have surely learned my lesson in the last… two minutes. I need to be cool. Noncommittal. Aloof.

I manage to shrug and sniff and mumble all at once. "Yeah, whatever."

It isn't so much cool, noncommittal, and aloof as phlegmy, incoherent, and vaguely reminiscent of a seizure. Great. His eyebrows are unreadable now.

"You okay?"

One hand waves of its own accord. " _Pfft._ I'm. Fine." Or back to myself, at least. Complete with sound effects. "We'll… yeah. Later."

"Right." He sounds unsure, but backs out anyway. "Rounds in five."

That could have gone better.

On the plus side, I can once again move like a normal person. But there is the lab coat still to go — best to err on the side of caution.

I bite my lip and check the clip on my pager. "So… what time do you think 'later' is, exactly?"

Tyra shakes her head. Her eyebrows have hit her hairline.

"Remember when your life was boring?" she says, and laughs. "This works _so much better_ for me _._ "

 

 

Micah keeps smiling, and Will keeps _staring_ , and Tyra keeps… squinting and smirking and snorting under her breath. When she's assigned to Mr. Chase, the crotchety bowel obstruction in 522, I try not to think of it as karma.

That has to be karma, though, right?

The woman in 523 is awake and alert, propped up on a pile of pillows and typing furiously on a laptop. Yep. On top of everything else, I'm totally going to get the cardiac workaholic of the week.

There's only the bad florescent lighting over the bed and the hospital gowns don't do anyone any favors, but she's _striking_ , with golden brown skin that's just slightly too sallow and curly black hair that's just slightly too short and ridiculously high cheekbones that are just slightly too sharp.

"Doctor Owens," Bandari snaps, swinging a chart my way. Called it. "Present."

I fumble for it for a moment. There are somany grips I need to get. So very, very many.

"Nadia Navarro, thirty-seven, admitted for fatigue, blurred vision, and possible pneumonia. Currently undergoing dialysis plus parenteral iron and erythropoietin supplementation for treatment of normocytic anemia connected to preexisting m…" Oh. Not cardiac. _So_ not cardiac. "Preexisting multiple myeloma. Previous chemotherapy and radiation, ongoing maintenance therapy of lenalidomide and dexamethasone."

"It's okay," Nadia says — still typing, but with a wink in my general direction. "Trust me, I am more than aware that I'm dying."

Oh, please don't make me like you. Cancer cases are bad enough without making me _like_ you.

"And what are we looking for?"

The chart feels foreign in my hands. I hope my face isn't doing the thing. "Elevated renal insufficiency, evidence of end-organ damage, increased tumor burden, or any plasmacytoma that might indicate, um…" Distance. Distance distance distance. What I wouldn't give for a nice bowel obstruction. "…progression from myeloma to plasma cell leukemia." And even though she's not looking, I can't not speak to Nadia directly. "We just need to make sure your cancer hasn't gotten any worse."

Micah isn't smiling anymore. Note to self: check on Joyce later.

Oh god, I still have _later_ to deal with.

Bandari nods, looking brittle and dangerous. God knows what happened to her vacation. "Get a bone marrow biopsy and do an antigen screen for CD20."

Everyone shuffles out after her, and Nadia snaps her laptop shut.

"Let me guess," she says, "I get the _big_ needle."

 

 

Nadia is a trooper. Even with the big needle.

I put a rush on my labs and finally take a deep breath, and Tyra corners me at the nurses' station.

"Can we not?" I groan. Or maybe whine. It definitely has whiney qualities. "It was bad enough this morning, with the smiling and the smirking and the staring, but then my patient had cancer. Which means I still have my own stupid things to worry about, only now there's added cancer, so I feel worse for worrying about problems that are non-cancerous."

" _Do you even know who that is?_ " she hisses.

"Who?" I hiss back. "Do you know how hard it is to keep up with you?"

"Your cancer patient!"

I blink. "Nadia?"

"Nadia _Navarro_. From 'Forces of Nature.'" My face must be doing a thing _now_ , because she rolls her eyes. "The show." Another blink. I am _so lost_. "Brilliant-but-naïve climatologist constantly caught between the sweet atmospheric physicist and the sexy balls-to-the-wall storm chaser?"

Maybe I can cover up my cringe. "Can't say that I know it. But, I mean, it _sounds_ …" Implausible. Inane. "Interesting."

"They use entry-level pseudo-science, they shoot everything in backwoods Canada, and I'm pretty sure they created an entirely new fault line just so she could have season finale sex during an earthquake." She takes a breath so deep she shakes. "It's glorious. I'm completely addicted."

Of course she is. "And _Nadia_ is on this show?"

"No, Nadia _created_ the show. And this is the last season. So I need you to get the inside scoop."

"What? No! I'm sorry, no. That would just be, just, _completely_ unprofessional. Not to mention insensitive, considering that the show ending probably has something to do with the fact that its creator has _terminal cancer_."

"You're right. Totally insensitive of me." She turns around, elbows on the desk and back over the edge, and nods, suddenly serious. Which sets off all kinds of warning bells in my head. Tyra doesn't _do_ serious. "I'll just go back to less… _fictional_ interests."

When she nods again, it's to a spot down the hall, where Will is rounding a corner and Micah is reading a chart.

Ah. So that's how it's going to be. She wants to see me squirm. Well I'll show her. I will be cool, I will be calm —

Tyra drops Mr. Chase's chart with a bang, two heads down the hall turn toward the noise, and I duck coolly and calmly behind the closest laundry cart.

"So," I squeak, and only squirm a little, "hypothetically-speaking, what sort of scoop are we talking?"

 

 

"Knock knock," I call into 523. Nadia is on her computer again, but doesn't hesitate to wave me inside. "I just need to take a quick blood sample."

"No worries," she says, "I can type one-handed."

" _Impressive._ " It is, actually — most multiple myeloma patients have a history of hypercalcaemia that leaves them prone to bone lesions and carpal tunnel, but her hands are limber and lovely. "Working on a script?"

She hums in a way that’s affirmative, then looks at me with shrewd surprise. "Wouldn't have pegged you for a fan." I look away, and she clucks her tongue. "But you aren't, are you?"

"My roommate is fan enough for both of us." I pull on gloves and prep a syringe. "If you want to know the truth, I'm actually here as a double agent. My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to divine all the secrets of the upcoming season and report back in great detail. And let me be clear: she did _not_ give me a choice."

She chuckles, and it's a just a little wheezy. I'll be checking her chest again, too.

"Does it get much worse than cancer?"

My head jerks up from the blood draw — she's caught me off guard.

"Earlier, you said…" She's twisting a stray thread on her sheet. I can actually _hear_ her swallow. "It doesn't really get _worse_ than cancer. Does it?"

I set aside the vial and snap off my gloves. "Not the way you're thinking, no. Myeloma can be managed. It tends to have a longer prognosis, on average, especially in younger patients. In some cases it's even asymptomatic. It's more that, um, there are worse cancers to _have_."

"Which is what you're looking for."

"Considering your symptoms, we're concerned. That it may be one of… those… ones." Perfect. I'm standing in front of a professional writer and suddenly can't string two words together.

"And how long would I have?"

Oh. No. This is headed to a bad place. "We don't know anything yet," I assure her. "And even if that is the case, there are still options available to you."

"When I was initially diagnosed, I was told I had five years. Give or take." She smiles. It's pleasant and resigned, and my heart hurts for her. "I assume the same isn't true of the worst case scenario."

"Well, no. But plasma cell leukemia has a very wide prognosis, depending on all sorts of factors — "

"I understand that. I do. But in my head, I had this certain amount of time. I made plans and promises based on that time, and I'll be honest, I was kind of counting on the _give_. But if take is what I'm looking at, well…" She pulls in a big breath. "I've spent the last eighteen months counting down from five, and I need to prepare myself to reset that clock. So. Ballpark it for me."

"Um." I swear, one day I will learn to do this while looking a patient in the eye. "Primary PCL, with combination treatment? About a year. Maybe more, if you explore stem cell therapy."

The nodding had started about half way through, and she still hasn't stopped. "Okay," she says, pressing her lips together. "Okay."

I'm there with the tissues when the first tear falls, but she huffs out a laugh along with it. "Ugh, not even soon enough to blow off my deadline. What the hell is cancer even good for?" She sniffs, smearing a tissue over her eyes. "So what exactly does your roommate want to know?"

I make a face and hope it's apologetic enough. "Sweet atmospheric physicist or sexy storm chaser? And for the record, she has entered a vote of 'threesome.'"

 


End file.
